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According to our discussion on Ethical Theories, in the example of the New York Yankees baseball team and the hunger emergency, the nonconsequentialist thinker would be more likely to…

For Kant, an inclination (desire) to want to help an old lady across the street is always a superior motive to simply doing the act out of duty (i.e. doing it because it’s simply the right thing to do).

In the classical version of utilitarianism theory, J.S. Mill was the philosopher that focused on the quantity of the pleasure (i.e., simply how many units of pleasure/happiness), and J. Bentham was the philosopher who also took into account the quality (type) of the pleasure produced (i.e. intellectual pleasures versus simpler ones) when assigning the number of units of pleasure from each activity.

In the book, one of the criticisms of Utilitarianism was how certain rules (even proposed in rule-utilitarianism) seem to…

One of Don Marquis’ points is that if someone correctly sees how his FLO argument applies to newborn infants (a few days old), then this will help them see how it applies to the unborn fetus as well.

Which act (A or B) would a person using classical utilitarian theory probably choose in the scenario below? (To keep things simple, assume here that this classical utilitarian is also using an act-utilitarian approach.)  Imagine a scientist (with the correct formula for a cure for cancer in his head) and a non-scientist who survive on a raft (after a shipwreck). In 30 days the raft will drift within shipping lanes (and thus a ship is likely to spot them at that point). Since there’s only enough food for 1 of them for 30 days, they can either do Act A (flip a coin as the totally fair thing to do and whoever wins, gets all the food) or Act B (give the scientist the food so he can survive and can return to civilization and get to a lab and produce the cure for cancer).

Helping others, at least whenever we can, is an example of an “imperfect duty” in Kant’s theory.

What did she do for money before she started acting? 

Describe what he tended to wear. (He has a rather striking appearance!)

Describe this person’s physical traits.